Securing means for a garment ornament



Dec. 21, 1965 R. SCHEBERLE SECURING MEANS FOR A GARMENT ORNAMENT .Filed Jan. 10, 1964 INVENTOR Arthur R. Scheber/e 6. 442m w/v/ A W }7// ATTORNEYS 3,224,059 SECURING MEANS FOR A GARMENT ORNAMENT Arthur R. Scheherle, 432 S. 2nd St., Sterling, Colo. Filed .Ian. 10, 1964, Ser. No. 336,962 Claims. (Cl. 24103) My invention relates primarily to improvements in securing means for garment-carried ornaments and the like, but is also applicable to utility buttons.

Heretofore garment ornaments, badges and the like have ordinarily involved the use of fasteners or mounting means of two types. The first type requires a pivoted pin that is spaced away from the ornament back, punctures the garment at two spaced points, and has its free end portion secured by a swingable ornament back-carried latch. Aside from the proneness of the latch to come open (with ornament loss as the result), this first type of fastener is not satisfactory because the ornament is tiltingly supported about the pin axis instead of making flat contiguous contact with the garment surface. Also the puncturing of the garment fabric at two places is objectionable for several reasons. In the first place, one or more extra holes will ordinarily have to be made before the ornament is correctly placed with respect to the horizontal. Also with thin fabrics, one or more of the holes are apt to be noticeable when a smaller ornament is worn, or none at all.

The second conventional type of ornamenbsecuring or fastener means is characterized by a rearwardly extending clamp disk-receiving threaded stem carried by the ornament back. Such a fastener is impractical except for lapel button hole use, or when the garment has a permanent reinforced stem-receiving hole, as in the case of police officers uniforms. Furthermore, the clamp disks tend to unscrew, which means ornament loss.

The present invention therefore has for its primary objects to overcome the aforementioned objections to the prior art devices mentioned; and particularly to provide an ornament fastener that will maintain flat ornamental contact with the garment while necessitating but a single small pin puncture of the garment fabric, so that the ornament will not only be self adjusting with respect to the horizontal, but can be quickly applied or removed. The nature of my novel fastener also is such that the ornament will not be lost even in the unlikely event that its free pin end separates from its retainer.

The invention also contemplates a device as characterized which is of simple inexpensive construction, and can readily be applied to the backs of ornaments, badges, buttons, etc.

Various objects and advantages of the invention will be readily understood and appreciated by those versed in the art upon reference to the accompanying drawing in connection with the related detailed description appearing hereinafter.

Pursuant to statutory requirements, I have illustrated herein a now-preferred example of the invention. However, the drawing disclosure is to be considered as merely illustrative, rather than limitative, as it will be obvious that various changes and modifications can be made in the device shown therein within the spirit and scope of the subject matter claimed hereinafter.

In the drawing, wherein the same reference characters have been used to indicate the same parts wherever they appear in the several views- FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing (at the left of the view) an ornament in use that incorporates my fastener and also an ornament (at the right) secured by a prior art fastener;

FIG. 2 is a front elevational view of different ornaments attached to garment fabric with my novel fastener indicated in dotted lines;

FIG. 3 is a section on the line 3-3 of FIG. 2, with the ornament and latched fastener shown in edge elevation from above;

FIG. 4 is a view similar to FIG. 3 but with the fastener pin unlatched;

FIG. 5 is a rear elevational view of the garment-carried ornament;

FIG. 6 is a side elevation of the fastener assembly detached;

FIG. 7 is a top view of the ornament and fastener and illustrating how the free pointed end of the fastener pin is manipulated to put it in operative position; and

FIG. 8 is a rear perspective of the fastener detached.

Referring to the drawing by reference characters and turning to FIG. 1, a indicates an ornament incorporating my novel securing means and applied to a girls dress [2 and showing how the ornament back makes contact with the garment surface. On the other hand, the other ornament 0 of FIG. 1 is shown tilted forwardly and downwardly about the conventional pivotally mounted pin d as an axis; and this materially detracts from both the appearance of the ornament as well as the garment to which it is applied. As earlier pointed out, it is one of the primary objects of the present invention to cause the entire back of a garment ornament to make snug engagement with the garment so as to appear to be an integral part of the latter as does ornament a in FIG. 1.

Thus in carrying out the invention shown in FIGS. 25, I provide the back of ornament 8 with -a novel garment engaging carrier attachment which is generally designated by reference character 10. This attachment 10 provides the major loop portion 10a of any springy wire-like metal or plastic stock that provides the terminal portions 12 and 13. These terminal portions 12, 13 are located adjacent the top of the ornament 8 as indicated in the drawing, and are concealed behind the ornament when it is applied to a garment.

The terminals 12, 13 overlap as indicated in FIGS. 2 and 5, and the terminal portion 13 tapers to the pointed end 13a for piercing a single hole in the fabric 11 from which the loop and ornament is utimately suspended, as indicated.

The second loop terminal portion 12 has the upwardly extending inverted U-form keeper portion 14 providing the bight portion 14x and the seat 14a for latchingly receiving the piercing portion 13 as indicated in FIGS. 2, 3 and 8 to close loop 10a. The inner leg 15 of the keeper portion 14 preferably extends downwardly to a point inwardly of the upper part of loop 10a and is soldered or otherwise secured to the back of the ornament 8 so that it constitutes an attaching portion.

Referring to FIGS. 4 and 6, it is to be noted that the springy loop 10a is inclined toward the plane of the ornament back-carried and leg-constituted attachment portion 15. Thus, when the ornament 8 with the carrier attachment 10 applied thereto is in use, the lower portion of the loop 10a will bear against the fabric 11 of the garment so as to prevent the ornament 8 from swinging about the bight portion 14x of keeper 14 as a pivot.

Normally the loop provided piercing portion 13 is sprung away from the terminal portion 12 as indicated in FIG. 7. To locate the piercing portion 13 in the keeper seat 14a it is only necessary (see FIG. 7) to use the thumb and forefinger to press the ornament 8 and piercing portion 13 toward one another while depressing portion 13 downwardly; and then release portion 13 so that it springs into seat 14a.

When applying the ornament 8 to the fabric 11 of a garment, the first step is to project the pointed loop end 13a through the garment fabric from the outer side to provide the hole 11a therethrough per FIGS. 3 and 4. Thereafter, two alternative procedures are available to locate the big-ht portion 14x of loop terminal portion 12, at the upper portion of loop 10, in the garment hole 11a as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 to pivotally suspend the ornament 8 therefrom. Thus (see FIGS. 2 and 4) the first alternative involves clockwise turning of ornament 8 to locate bight 14x in garment hole 11a of FIG. 4.

However, the second alternative way of locating the bight portion 14x in garment hole 11a following the garment-piercing step is by far the quickest and simplest. This is so because all that is involved is first raising the ornament 8 to locate the lower mid-portion of loop 10 in garment hole 11a; and then lowering the ornament until bight 14x seats in said hole 11a. The same result would of course result by reversal movements of the hole (11a) area of garment 11 with respect to ornament 8.

Upon completion of either of the above referred to procedures the piercing loop end portion 13 is located in the seat 14a as previously mentioned in connection with FIG. 7, so as to hold the ornament in place.

Even if, while the ornament is being worn, there should be some relative downward pressure against the piercing end portion 13 and the same should become detached from its seat 14a, the ornament 8 will not be lost because the force of gravity will still maintain the garment puncture seated on the bight portion 14x of the keeper 14.

The attachment 11) can be expeditiously and cheaply made in a variety of ways. Any preferred means may be employed such as soldering, brazing, riveting, or otherwise, to secure the attaching portion 15 to the back of the ornament 8. The length of the attaching portion 15 is optional and it may be relatively long as indicated in FIG. 5, or considerably shorter as indicated at 15a in FIG. 8.

Also the wearer is protected against contact with point 13a or protuberances such as characterized by the prior art.

From the foregoing it is believed that the advantages and importance of my novel attachment will be readily appreciated and understood.

Having thus described my invention what I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. A detachable garment ornament, badge, button, or the like having top and bottom edges, a display front and a garment-opposing back, comprising, in combination, a functionally integral ornament-back-carried garmentsupported means comprising a loop of resilient wire-like material, said loop providing upper and lower portions and the upper portion providing overlappable free end portions which are located adjacent the ornament top, one of said loop end portions having a garment piercing terminal, the other loop end portion terminating in a seat for the first mentioned loop end portion inwardly of its piercing terminal, said seat being disposed between the loop and the ornament back, whereby to maintain said loop closed when the ornament is being worn, and the inner end of said seat providing a portion which is secured to the back of said ornament adjacent its top, whereby when the ornament is being worn it will hang downwardly and be pivotally sustained by said garment supported seat.

2. The structure of claim 1, and the lower portion of said resilient loop extending in the direction of the bottom ornament edge and being inclined toward and closely approaching the plane of the ornament back, so as to frictionally bear against the inner garment surface to compress the outer surface thereof against the ornament back so as to prevent swinging movement of the ornament about said seat as an axis.

3. A latchable attachment for detachably securing ornaments, button, badges, etc., in pivoted pendant relationship to garments, said attachment comprising a single loop of resilient wire-like material providing overlappable free end portions to be located adjacent what is the upper portion of the ornament or the like in service, one of said loop end portions having a garment-piercing terminal, the other loop end portion terminating in a functionally integral attaching portion for connection to an ornament back adjacent what is the top edge of the latter when the ornament is in service, said attaching portion normally underlying the first mentioned end portion inwardly of its piercing terminal, said attaching portion having an inner part which provides one of the legs of an upwardly extending bight which has substantially the form of an inverted U, providing a keeper for said first-mentioned end portion, the other leg of said bight being a continuation of the adjacent portion of said loop, whereby the bight portion of said keeper cooperates with a pierce-created garment hole to support an ornament, the resilient loop being inclined toward the bottom end of an attached ornament, with the lower portion of said loop being substantially co-planar with the ornament-back-engaging surface of said attaching portion, whereby when the attachment is applied to an ornament back, the lower loop portion will frictionally bear against the inner garment surface to draw the ornament back against the outer garment surface to prevent swinging of the ornament about the pierced garment hole-supported bight portion of the keeper as the single garment-provided ornament support.

4. A detachable article comprising an ornament, a badge, a button or the like having top and bottom edges, a display front, and a garment-opposing back, and means for supporting said article, said means comprising a portion having the form of a loop of resilient wire material, said loop having at one end a free terminal portion adapted to pierce the fabric of a supporting garment and at the opposite end a portion secured to said back so as to retain said loop in an area lying between said top and bottom article edges, said loop having adjacent said backsecured portion a bight-providing keeper for said free terminal portoin, said keeper having substantially the form of an inverted U, said free terminal portion of said loop being adapted to pierce the fabric of the supporting garment to provide an aperture therein so that said loop can be moved through the garment aperture formed by said free terminal portion, whereby to position the bight of said keeper in said aperture, said free terminal portion of said loop being adapted to be resiliently received and retained in the bight portion of said keeper, so that the ornament, badge, or button may be pivotally supported on the garment.

5. The structure of claim 1, and the lower portion of said resilient loop extending in the direction of the bottom ornament edge and being inclined toward and closely approaching the plane of the ornament back, so as to frictionally bear against the inner garment surface to compress the outer surface thereof against the ornament back so as to prevent swinging movement of the ornament about said seat as an axis.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 237,145 2/1881 Tobias 4025 415,459 11/1899 Hickey 24-103 765,757 7/1904 Taylor 24159 2,573,876 11/1951 Rodrigues 24l12 WILLIAM FELDMAN, Primary Examiner.

DONLEY I. STOCKING, Examiner.

E. SIMONSEN, Assistant Examiner. 

1. A DETACHABLE GARMENT ORNAMENT, BADGE, BUTTON, OR THE LIKE HAVING TOP AND BOTTOM EDGES, A DISPLAY FRONT AND GARMENT-OPPOSING BACK, COMPRISING, IN COMBINATION, A FUNCTIONALLY INTEGRAL ORNAMENT-BACK-CARRIED GARMENTSUPPOSED MEANS COMPRISING A LOOP OF RESILIENT WIRE-LIKE MATERIAL, SAID LOOP PROVIDING UPPER AND LOWER PORTIONS AND THE UPPER PORTION PROVIDING OVERLAPPABLE FREE END PORTIONS WHICH ARE LOCATED ADJACENT THE ORNAMENT TOP, ONE OF SAID LOOP END PORTIONS HAVING A GARMENT PIERCING TERMINAL, THE OTHER LOOP END PORTION TERMINATING IN A SEAT FOR THE FIRST MENTIONED LOOP END PORTION INWARDLY OF ITS PIERCING TERMINAL, SAID SEAT BEING DISPOSED BETWEEN THE LOOP AND THE ORNAMENT BACK, WHEREBY TO MAINTAIN SAID LOOP CLOSED WHEN THE ORNAMENT IS BEING WORN, AND THE INNER END OF SAID SEAT PROVIDING A PORTION WHICH IS SECURED TO THE BACK OF SAID ORNAMENT ADJACENT ITS TOP, WHEREBY WHEN THE ORNAMENT IS BEING WORN IT WILL HANG DOWNWARDLY AND BE PIVOTALLY SUSTAINED BY SAID GARMENT SUPPORTED SEAT. 